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‘Enough’s enough,’ judge tells woman

A 49-year-old Kingston woman, who has spent almost four months in pretrial custody on drug charges, has been sentenced to a further 71 days in jail and her troubles aren’t over yet.

Lysa A. Stasek pleaded guilty last week in Kingston’s Superior Court to three counts of drug possession from last September and 19 days of her pretrial custody was applied to her sentence, making it the equivalent of 90 days.

She was also warned by Justice Helen MacLeod-Beliveau that if she keeps it up, she’s seriously looking at the possibility of penitentiary time.

“Enough’s enough,” the judge told her.

Just one week earlier, Stasek pleaded guilty in Kingston’s Ontario Court of Justice to a separate count of drug possession and two counts of violating conditions of a release undertaking. She was credited with 100 days of pretrial custody and sentenced to time served, but remained in custody awaiting her appearance in Superior Court.

Stasek still has to deal with an outstanding charge from last August of possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, however, which is expected to go to trial in Superior Court some time in the future.

Federal Crown prosecutor Bruce MacNaughton told Justice MacLeod-Beliveau that the charges before her — from Sept. 23 — were laid against Stasek after the Kingston Police drug unit secured a search warrant for her residence on Leroy Grant Drive.

Told what the officers were looking for, he said Stasek removed a Kinder egg from her purse and turned it over. Inside the egg — actually the plastic insert from a popular children’s candy each containing a toy surprise — MacNaughton said police found half-a-gram of crack cocaine, two grams of marijuana, four 60 mg morphine pills and one 40 mg morphine pill.

They also found and seized $3,010 in Canadian currency from Stasek’s apartment, which Justice MacLeod-Beliveau, acting on the lawyers’ recommendation, ordered forfeit and turned over to Legal Aid Ontario as a contribution toward Stasek’s legal fees.

Defence lawyer Dave Sinnett told MacLeod-Beliveau his client is American with landed immigrant status in Canada, but is involved in ongoing deportation proceedings.

He also claimed she’s been under considerable added stress during her time in custody because she’s been unable to see her mother.

Sinnett disclosed that Stasek’s mother, who lives in a nursing home in Barrie, has multiple sclerosis, a condition that causes the nerves of the brain and spinal cord to degenerate.

In sentencing her, however, MacLeod-Beliveau noted that Stasek “has what can only be described as an extensive record,” spanning 24 years.

“You have a horrendous drug record,” she said, as well as for not complying with release conditions.

The judge also observed that other judges before her have tried various sentencing schemes with Stasek. Back in 1994, one gave her intermittent jail on weekends and another, in 2006, let her serve her sentence in the community. She was conviction-free from 2007, according to MacLeod-Beliveau “until you started back at it in March 2011.”

In the case before her, the judge said she was accepting the joint sentencing recommendation of the two lawyers involved, based on their expertise and knowledge of their case.

But she told Stasek bluntly that “this is the kindest sentence you could receive with your record.”